I am not healing to go back. I am healing to go beyond.
It’s been some time since I let my soul spill across a page. The ink feels foreign yet familiar, like an old friend you once loved deeply but had to walk away from – for your own good.
So here I am. Not whole. Not undone. Just somewhere in between.
I’ve changed. Not in a way that feels polished or triumphant. More like the ocean after a storm. Still moving. Still alive. But different in the bones. I’ve walked through fire that didn’t announce itself in flames but left its ash in the corners of my spirit. And now I find myself tending to the wounds. Not to return to who I was, but to become someone entirely new.
This healing is not about patchwork. Not about returning the pieces to their old positions. No, it is about honoring the ruins and then building a home somewhere beyond them. It’s a tender rebellion. A soft reckoning. I am not healing to go back. I am healing to go beyond.
And that’s the ache of it. The part no one tells you about when they speak of growth as if it is always beautiful. Sometimes it means outgrowing the very self you once clung to for survival. Realizing that the woman you’ve invested so many years in, the one who fought for joy, stood in grace, survived silence – she is not the one who will carry you forward.
But oh, how I love her. I hold her hand in my memory and thank her. With the kind of reverence one might offer to a guardian who kept watch during the darkest hours. She did her job. She got me here. But now, she may rest.
And I … I will rise.
